Hi all,
I bought a composite 1978 Enterprise dinghy to use over our local 25 acre sailing lake with my kids (7& 4). The deck has seen better days & has damage, lifting varnish, soft bits.
Had real fun learning to sail again ( got commercial coastal skipper in a past life, but forgotten most of it !)
Really not sure weather to repair/re-deck it or get wayfarer instead. My 7 year old son has had us racing the last few Sundays, which is great fun but find myself drawn towards the cruising side.
Our Enterprise has a very good set of cruising sales & combi trailer, the thing that really puts me off keeping it is when it is righted after capsize the water level is above dagger board casing. This makes it a real bitch to bail Any advise or abuse appreciated

Well, it doesn't sound right for it to be quite that deep in the water. If you've got any good modern Enterprises at your club it might be worth comparing notes and see if you can cure the problem without too much effort.

Personally though I'd have a more modern boat with decent buoyancy... A worst case Wayfarer might not be any better than the Enterprise.

Take something with you to stuff the centreboard case slot to stop the water coming in - soft hosepipe for example or even a towel - plus a bucket to bale with. And don't forget to tie them on!
To get moving you need to back the jib to the opposite side and sail on a reach then open the transom flaps when moving well.

Do you have a built in bow tank or a boyancy bag - or anything under the deck at all?

Ents take in a lot of water but should not be above the centreboard case, check the bags are all present and fully inflated, if not then you have the dual problem of both inadequate floatation and the weight of the extra water taking up the space that should be occupied by the bag.

Transom flaps have been blanked off, previous owner said they let in more water than they removed, thinking of reinstating them. It has 4 buoyancy bags, might have been slightly under inflated in rear (slow puncture), has built in buoyancy in bow ( 2 circular screw hatches )
Has self bailers, but really could not get it moving quick enough for them to work we just limped to shore for hardcore bailing session.

In those 'swamped' circumstances you really need the transom flaps, or a bucket. As has been said, you need to get it moving on a broader point of sail, then once most of it has gone out the transom flaps you should be able to get the self bailers working.

The side bouyancy bags should be long enough so that the aft ones touch the transom and the fore ones touch the front tank. They don't on ours and on the ocassions we have capsized have taken on a lot of water.

We too sail on a small water so at the moment I am not too bothered and as we have capsized only a couple of times and have sailed it dry so will live with it until the bouyancy bags need replacement or the boat gets upgraded.

I appreciate this is an old post, but it is of interest to me non the less, as I have just bought a mid 1970's GRP Ent (possibly a 404 before they amalgamated the class). We had our first capsize last Saturday after a poorly executed gybe - my fault. I managed to right her okay, however when she came up, the rear of the transom was level with the water and the centre board case was well below the water on board. My daughter was scooped up, but I was concerned that my weight could actually sink her. I got on board after a bit of frantic bailing but we were still very low in the water, we managed to get underway and opened the self bailer which seemed to help a bit, but the transom flaps were submerged unless roll tacking and then let in more water than they got rid of. We managed to get rid of most of the water through bailing and the self bailer. At the end of the day we found she had taken on a lot of water into the buoyancy tanks as she was very heavy to pull up the slip way and the water ran for ages from the two buoyancy tank drains. I am going to do a low pressure integrity test on the hull to hopefully find and fix the leak, I think there may be a hairline crack under the gunnel that was submerged. Wish me luck!

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